About
Spiritual and faith communities can provide meaning, relationships, shared beliefs, and a sense of belonging. But that relationship is not always simple.
Some people arrive here carrying real caution, even suspicion, toward spiritual communities and their leaders. Others arrive curious and open. Either is a fair starting point.
This section of Everyday Spiritual Health is for anyone whose relationship to a spiritual or faith community isn’t simple right now. Whether you’re weighing getting involved, sitting with questions that have grown harder to ignore, staying when part of you has already stepped back, or living with the aftermath of having left.
The focus isn’t ordinary disagreements about personalities, practices, or administration. It’s the deeper questions: belief, truth, spiritual experience, authority, identity, belonging, growth, meaning.
There are no predetermined answers here. This isn’t a diagnosis, and it doesn’t treat your experience as a problem to solve or a wound to heal. And it doesn’t assume you’re moving toward leaving, staying, or any other outcome.
I won’t pretend this is easy territory. It won’t tell you what went wrong, what to do next, or where you should end up. If that’s what you’re looking for, this may not be it.
Why I created this section
For years, I was deeply involved in a spiritual community: its roles, its ministries, its shared sense of direction. I no longer resonate with any of that, and I’ve lost whatever affinity I once had with where its teachings were heading.
I don’t have the answers for anyone else’s journey.
What I can offer is that I know this territory, and I’m willing to walk through it alongside you.
Start wherever reflects where you are now. Sometimes reading is enough. Other times, it helps to talk with someone who understands the territory. This is why a private one-on-one conversation is available.
The aim throughout is not to lead you to a conclusion, but to help you take your own position seriously, wherever it stands.
More is coming, including additional pages and resources for the different circumstances people find themselves in.
In the meantime, a new Substack, Spiritual Community and Faith, explores these questions essay by essay, starting with one called Irreconcilable Differences.